Falling into the pond

When my sister read my last post about falling through the ice, she reminded me of another time I fell into a body freezing cold water.  Here's what happened:

I was about 12 or 13 years old and we were at that adolescent stage where there's nothing fun to do;  Too old to "play" and too young to have money to go anywhere.  The only thing we could come up with to fill our time was hanging out at Twin Ponds.  As the name suggests, Twin Ponds are a set of man-made ponds that are separated by a road in Brampton.  They are a fairly decent size but an unreasonable bylaw prevents anyone from using it to swim, skate or fish.  The only thing they were good for was sitting on the big rocks that frame it, and light fires by aid of WD49.  (Remember we were 12/13 years old!  Our brains weren't fully developed yet!!)

The one other thing that drew me to Twin Lakes was they were right behind the house where a crush of mine lived. 

On a cold November afternoon, a few friends, one crush, one can of WD40, one lighter, and myself were hanging out on the rocks.  We were amusing ourselves by spaying WD40 in a pattern on the rocks, lighting the end of it, and watching the fire consume our designs before it starved out.  This may also have been the time we learned that fire will travel UP the spray and into the can....quickly remedied by launching the can into the lake.

At some point I must have found something particularly funny and I leaned back with a hearty laugh. This bold move -likely a combination of my natural grace and agility, or designed to draw attention to myself- culminated in me toppling off the rock into the fridged November waters below. The pond wasn't deep enough around the shore to threaten my life; only my pride, which was deeply hurt.

Once my friends had finished howling at my predicament, I hobbled out of the water and we made our way back to my crushes house.  Wanting to die from embarrassment, his mother traded my soggy frozen clothes for his clothes and then called my mom to pick me up. Both ladies enjoyed a laugh at my expense together and I was brought home to a rendition of "under the sea" by my loving brother and sister.

When I Fell Through Ice

Spending New Years at Aunt Lorna's cottage has been tradition for several years now.  It's a winterized cottage on a reasonably secluded lake, complete with sauna and outdoor hot tub.  A dozen or so of our friend's gather here each year and have a pseudo-quiet weekend of board games, movies, fancy-pants meals, shooting pop cans with bb-guns, kitchen dance parties and scary midnight ice walks. 

I'm sure most of my friends make no bones about it, but in truth, the ice walks terrify me. What otherwise could be portrayed as a romantic starlit walk is more of a battle of bravery and determination for me. I internally obsess over the depth of freezing cold water beneath us. Every step is marked with a crunch of snow, and every few feet we progress lets out a moan of cracking ice. I pray nearly the whole way.  But each year I go along for the stroll, perhaps just to renew a healthy sense of respect for nature into my soul.

In 2008 Laurie, Justin and I went for a walk on the ice just after sunset. Instead of venturing off to the other side of the lake, we opted to stick closer to the cottage. Not far from the cottage, the ice suddenly gave way and swallowed my entire right leg. I screamed and yelled "help me!" as my best friend ran off to the shore. I'll forgive her since she was two months pregnant at the time. Luckily her husband wasn't a jerk and pulled me out before the lake decided to finish me off.

My leg was soaked and nearly frozen through by the time we got back to the cottage. I threw open the front door to announce to our friends that I had just stared death in the eye...but I barely interrupted the intense domino game growing on the dinning room table. No one was particularly impressed other to impart a quick science lesson on me: "Didn't you know ice is thinner near the shore?"

My friends are jerks. Except Justin.  We're still cool.

The Significance of the Back of the Bus

Back in grade 7 or 8, we were going on a ski trip and had been corralled like cattle into the GP room to wait for the buses to arrive.  The room was thick with anticipation, both for the actual trip and to see who would get the back of the bus.

- Quick pause for those of you who have never been bussed to school.  Seating on a school bus is like a hierarchy of coolness.  Like chickens sorting out their pecking order, so too are tweens in determining the seating arrangement of a bus. -

Back in the GP room, I was front and center at the closed door, fiddling with the metal latch to control my tension.  Little to my knowledge, the buses had arrived out front and the teachers, having heard the excited din of the auditorium, were strategically arranging themselves so as not to get trampled.

Suddenly -with my thumb still in the metal latch- the doors were flung open, tearing my thumbnail nearly clean off.

I ran at the head of the stampede...both out of searing pain and stubborn determination to stake my claim.  Once my gear was safely guarding the most coveted of all vinyl benches, I had to wait for the rest of the bus to fill up before I could do anything about my mangled thumb.  

As soon as I was able, I bee-lined for the office.  At this point my thumb was on fire and shooting flaming needles up my arm.  The nail was now only partially lodged in my nail bed and the soft white flesh underneath was curdling with blood and oil. I threw open the office door and as my vision went black and my hearing faded I shouted "I need Tylenol!"

Back then Tylenol counted as medicine so instead I got an orange juice box, a bandaid, and a stern suggestion to not go skiing.  Which I obviously ignored.

After a few hills my hands were too cold to register the pain anymore, but by the end of the day when I took off my glove, I left the thumbnail behind in the pocket of my mitten.

Such is the cost of popularity.